Infinitely

Remember who you are, Sarah

"Sarah," Eliza's voice stops me before I can walk out the front door. I pause, trying to figure out what she wants. It's Sunday morning and we're on our way to church.

Normally polygamist families have their own church services - either at home or in bigger towns there are actual polygamist churches - but here in Hurricane if we didn't go to the mainstream Mormon church everyone would be suspicious. It's my least favorite part of the week because LDS church lasts for 3 hours and there's no getting out of it. Not even when Claire had her baby - no, I just got to take all her kids to church and try to handle them on my own.

At first I was shocked that we would go to church with everyone else in town because to me it seemed so obvious that we're a polygamist family. Jenna and Claire with big pregnant bellies and no husbands around? But a few lies fix everything and I soon discover that everyone thinks Jenna, Claire, Tammy, and Connie have husbands with jobs that keep them away fromhome. And better than that, they all think it's so great that they all live so close together to help each other out.

The church lessons themselves are okay and not very different from what we used to have when I was growing up. Of course the LDS Church used to be part of my church before they turned their back on polygamy and the two churches split up. So other than their whole "you only get one wife" rule it all seems the same to me. It's kind of nice getting to hear lessons from different people all the time.

"Sarah, will you go pick up Claire's kids?" Eliza asks. I nod and turn to go through the back door instead.

Jonas is coming into the house as I'm walking out of it. He pauses for a second and looks me over.

"You look really nice," he smiles.

"Thanks," I tell him.

"See you at church?" he asks like I have a choice.

"Yes," I nod and hurry off. He stayed with Claire last night but the night before he was with me. Before she had her baby he was with me every night for 3 weeks. Then he started alternating between me and Claire. I'm exhausted but I don't know how to ask him to leave me alone.

As I let myself into Claire's house I remind myself that this is what I wanted. I shouldn't be trying to get away from Jonas, I should be happy that I ended up somewhere safe. My sister wives aren't awful. We have enough food and I get my own room. And I still find chances to sneak off and get on Twitter. It could be so much worse.

Sunday passes quickly after that and so does Monday. I spend most of my time helping with the kids while Connie and Tammy are at work. And when Eliza is home she almost always has some kind of craft project for us to do. If it weren't for the fact that I still miss Luke and that Jonas won't leave me alone I might have everything I wanted in my new life.

"Oh no," I groan when my alarm goes off that morning. It's the first day of school and, if the massive cramps are any kind of warning, my period has also decided to show up today. "No, no, no," I whisper as I get out of bed and run for the bathroom.

"Sarah?" Eliza's heard me. "Are you alright?"

"Ugh," I'm too late. Just taking the three steps from my bed to the bathroom was enough to unleash a massive flood. "Are there tampons?" I call to Eliza.

"I'll get you some," she says through the door. Even if we weren't forced to leave our doors open all the time my bathroom connects to my bedroom and the hall so I have even less privacy in there.

Eliza's back in almost no time and I wrap a towel around my waist so I can open the door. She's got on her most sympathetic face as she hands me a box of tampons.

"On your first day of school," she sighs.

"Just my luck," I shrug and shut the door again. "Thank you," I add, feeling a little bad for shutting the door in her face.